Run command on kill signal?

Question

Is there an autocmd event for kill signals (for e.g. SIGTERM) ? As this answer indicates Vim can catch SigUSR1 event. My use case is to save session on SIGTERM before quitting.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 09 '21 at 13:05

1

There's no such thing like "kill signal". There are different signals application may receive from OS.

SIGKILL cannot be caught by any application. Never.

SIGUSR1 can be processed by auto-command (see :h SigUSR1 in Vim and :h Signal in Neovim).

SIGINT is caught and processed by Vim application. If it happens to run some script while SIGINT is being raised then that script can :catch /^Vim:Interrupt$/ inside "try"-block.

SIGHUP, SIGTERM and alike force Vim to quit.

answered Feb 09 '21 at 13:05

Matt

20,685
1
11
24

It is possible to catch SIGTERM as shown by this example in python. Does Vim allow doing something similar? – tejasvi88 Feb 09 '21 at 14:08
1

@tejasvi88 As I said, Vim simply quits upon SIGTERM. – Matt Feb 09 '21 at 14:14

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 09 '21 at 14:15

vim offers the autocmd VimLeavePre

:autocmd VimLeavePre * call CleanupStuff()

Although this is not technically specific to SIGTERM, it can be used in this sitaution. You can use the variable v:dying to distinguish normal exits from abnormal (e.g., with a signal).

Run command on kill signal?

2 Answers2